held together by fruitless strings
by doroniasobi
Summary: before there is Mustang and Hawkeye, there is Roy, and there is Riza. — RoyRiza. /for meccanico/


**A/N: For the YuukiFroggydoro challenge of April 2011. And for dearest meccanico.**

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><p>Before there is Mustang and Hawkeye, there is Roy, and there is Riza.<p>

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><p>He almost doesn't recognize her when she reintroduces herself. Her eyes are dull and thick and a murky, dull brown; a colour that he doesn't remember having seen in her eyes. A colour that holds animosity and resembles death. A colour that he sees reflecting in all the people around them, their eyes being empty voids of despair. He sees her mud-caked boots and her short, her dirty blonde hair, and her thin, frail fingers (that are still so strong; he wonders how many triggers they've made her pull, how many lives they've made her take—how many blows her heart has taken and how many times she has to fight to keep going).<p>

Gunshots ring out in the distance and when Mustang shudders back into reality, Hughes claps a firm hand to his shoulder; turns around and his footsteps quiet and Hawkeye stands in front of him, hand to her forehead in a still-solemn salute. For a moment, he is reminded of those times in the past, of those times when her hair shone with radiance and her clear, clear hazel eyes. They were beautiful back then, but they are a different kind of beautiful right now.

"Lieutenant Hawkeye at your service," she says to him, voice dry and tired. The hand on her forehead doesn't move and Mustang realizes just how much this means to her.

"Drop your formalities," he orders, but his voice comes out a crackle; a croak. She says nothing; her lips stay tight, thinning a fine line, because all she wants is the music of silence. Nothing else.

And he is just as surprised as she when he realizes that he understands that, and he walks slowly to her, stopping but a few feet away. He wants her to know; wants her to know that he doesn't care what the world thinks. He has words where she has music and suddenly it becomes a different kind of quiet. It is not the sort of quiet of awkward silences; it is the quiet of long lost companions lost in the thoughts of each other and the quiet of thrills, the quiet of the comfortable. Right now there is none of that and still, they feel it.

Roy is the one that knows the quiet places. He knows all of the quietest places, and the loudest.

Riza meets Roy in the loudest possible, and finds all the quiet ones in return.

(They don't speak when they get close enough. Riza doesn't smile and Roy knows why; Roy knows everything that Mustang doesn't, and Roy is always Roy before Roy is Mustang. But Riza—Riza's eyes cloud up and Riza leans her forehead on Roy's shoulder and Riza says 'I'm not crying'. And Roy is there for it all because he _knows_ Riza and even though his shoulder is damp and his smile is tired, he also knows that Riza Hawkeye does not cry.)

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><p>"Burn it."<p>

"I—"

"_Please_." Pause. There is a whisper that only he can hear (that only he is meant to hear).

"It's to prevent the creation of another flame alchemist in the world."

The room is still and she has her back towards him, her stark naked body smooth and delicate with the glimmer of sunlight through the half-closed curtains waving and washing over her skin. It smells of dry coffee on an early Tuesday morning, of wood and home, all at once. He recognizes the smell, but cannot place where he's smelled it before.

She shifts and curls her arms around herself. She is still waiting.

His lungs fill and collapse with a shuddering breath. "Okay," he whispers, just as quietly. "Okay." Then he adds, with a small tremor to his tone, "Just enough so that it is marred. Just enough so it can heal. Just," he falters, catches his breath, "_enough_."

She doesn't scream when the pain flares. She doesn't cry when the fire curls around her body. When he is done, he wraps her body in a clean, thick, towel, and apologizes, apologizes for anything and everything (and everything and anything).

"Riza," he breathes, fisting the cloth. "Riza." Not Hawkeye, but simply Riza. (To Roy, Riza is always _Riza_.)

Her brown eyes glow. The last inklings of pain are forgotten and with the release of tense shoulders and her more-than-ever trustful, trustful gaze.

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><p>Old habits do die hard, and it is not easy to not be able to fall back into pattern, to revert back to the lingering gazes, to go back to how it had all been before, to spare smiles when they really aren't needed. It is like that of a whole other language; one that only know the meaning of, like a secret code never to be deciphered. It feels like there is something, and yet there is nothing. It calms the both of them down. It makes them forget that their country is dying. It makes them forget everything in the present and helps them remember all the good things in the past. And it feels good, to forget. It feels good, to simply not remember.<p>

And still, the higher-uppers notice when no one else does.

They are almost deceived by the way the Fuhrer looks over at them casually in the middle of a meeting. "Mustang." Roy Mustang salutes, stands at order. Riza Hawkeye sits beside him with her eyes closed and her hands cupped around her mug of tea.

"Mustang," he repeats. "Lietenant Hawkeye." She flickers her eyes to meet his and stands. The Fuhrer slides a paper over to the two of them, to which the both of them stare at blankly. "Come up with something," he explains, the usual neutral smile and the same eye patch over his eye. Roy Mustang grabs the piece of paper, and Riza salutes, hums in agreement.

"Oh, and someone saw you yesterday." Roy looks up sharply (not Mustang, but _Roy_). Riza stiffens visibly. Again, nearly fooled by the nonchalance of the tone, the neutrality. Roy runs his eyes over the Fuhrer's face and sees absolutely nothing that he shouldn't. The Fuhrer swivels his eyes first to Roy, and then to Riza, his gaze penetrating like laser beams, like vision that can see through everything.

"You won't do it again." He leaves the room quietly, with hands folded together behind his back.

And then, Roy gets it. (_Roy._)

While there is Mustang and Hawkeye, there is no Roy and no Riza. Roy looks over to Riza, whose knuckles are white, white, white.

There isn't a 'Roy and Riza', either.

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><p>The next morning, when Roy walks into his office, Hawkeye is already there. She looks up from her paper shuffling and stares at Mustang.<p>

"Hey," he says to her.

"Good morning, Colonel," she says back. The room is quiet and she is alone. Hawkeye salutes. "You have a lot of work to do today."

This time, her gazes don't linger and her smiles never surface.

(And even though they've been acquainted for so long, in that moment, they feel like strangers.)

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><p>Hughes is apologetic and offers to stay the night and pay for his food. They sit in a tiny restaurant that they'd discovered several months ago, but since Hughes had been busy with his wife, that night is the first in a long time. He downs his cup of water, clinking the ice, and sets his cup down; Roy knows that Hughes has never really liked tea.<p>

"You don't have to do what he says," Hughes tells him; his eyes are serious and his glasses gleam a determined light. "You really don't, Roy."

Roy doesn't say anything.

Hughes curses under his breath, and Roy also knows that the only other time that he does it when he's not sober. "It was a choice," he continues to say. "A choice that he gave you to make."

"No it wasn't," Roy says. "And you know that." He breathes in sharply, nudging his tea to his lips. "It doesn't feel the same. It isn't the same. Do you know what I mean?"

"No," Hughes admits, and grimaces as the smell of tea wafts in the air. "No, I don't. But I do know that everything's got a choice in the end." He stares at Roy, who stares right back. "If you do it anyway, then you can't blame anyone but yourself." He points a finger at him. "You know that as well as I do, Roy Mustang. Don't you dare pretend that you don't."

"We've come too far for me to start making choices."

"I won't think that."

"You're _Hughes_," Roy scoffs. "I know you won't." He stops. "Besides," he adds, quietly, "she stopped first."

"Have those been filed?"

Roy lifts his head in surprise. "Oh, yeah, sure," he says, distracted. Conversations still feel empty, but there are still conversations. It relieves him, in a way, and worries him in another. "They've been finished a while ago, Lieutenant. You can take them down now."

They learn their limits. It passes off as getting into character to whoever may be watching, and sometimes, Roy doesn't think twice about his actions. Sometimes he will accidentally pass a look to her, and she misses it (on _purpose_, he knows), as though she hadn't noticed at all. He is reminded that they are different now and that it is like a stupid game of catch; Roy keeps tossing but Riza refuses to catch.

Instead, Hawkeye stands in her place and confiscates whatever it is that they're throwing, and Roy doesn't tighten his fingers around his files anymore or taps his finger twice and get to see the hidden smile shown only for him. In return, she closes her eyes when accepting them and avoids his gaze when he sees her out at the end of the day.

And Roy never asks, because he is afraid of what her answer might be.

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><p>He doesn't see it already there (because it's not 'coming' if it's already <em>there<em>). He is sitting at home with old glasses perched on his nose and an old, brown from the office book in hand. And when he moves to turn the page, a small, white piece of paper flies out at him and he catches it just before it floats to the ground. It's a small, flimsy thing, and when he is about to throw it away, he realizes that there is a date written in black ink. A date, and nothing else.

Roy finds another one a few pages later, with a different, more recent date. And another, and another, and another. There are so many papers that the floor is littered full of them and Roy has no idea where they're coming, and—

The last one he finds is taped to the back of his book, with yesterday's date on it. There is a different message on this one this time.

_I haven't forgotten_.

He doesn't recognize the neat scrawl nor does he recognize the type of quill pen or the quality of the ink. Roy recognizes nothing but the warmth, the aura radiating off that one single piece of paper, and everything that reminds him solely of Riza Hawkeye (that is not Hawkeye, but simply _Riza_).

A breathy laugh shatters it way out Roy's throat and he breathes in to fill his lungs with reassurance and relief and at that moment, there are so many things he wants to say but simply cannot.

So he musters all his sanity, fingers shaking, turns the same piece of paper over and writes back to her something of his own and doesn't forget to sign his initials near the bottom, the way he does when he signs finished reports;

_Miss you_.

And he smiles; leaves it at that.

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><p>He sees her the next morning, walks past her in the hallway, and catches a glimpse of that familiar smile he had grown so much to seeing and had not completely grown out of being familiarized with.<p>

"Late," she tells him, and her expression curls. With it, his heart. She knows; Roy has learned that she knows simply because she _knows_ and it is Riza and Riza always _knows_. "Why so _late_?"

Roy grins. "I'm a bastard, remember? A stupid one, at that," he reminds her. He sees her face soften and stare at him fondly with those eyes that are all Riza and he is reminded of what he had almost forgotten, reminded of how it all felt. But that is okay. It is all okay now.

Today, it is Riza. Not Hawkeye, but _Riza_. (Riza, Riza, Riza.)

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><p>A few weeks later, there is another meeting.<p>

The Fuhrer eyes Mustang with a fierce look and turns his head to Hawkeye, whose eyes are almost always closed and whose hands cup her mug of tea. The silence envelops them all in a tense, tense atmosphere, and it isn't until Mustang addresses him does the silence completely shatter.

"Will that be all?"

Hawkeye stands.

Mustang smiles wryly and salutes, even though they both know he doesn't mean it. "I'll take my leave then. Come, Lieutenant." She follows obediently and bows at a forty degree on her way out.

They both know that she doesn't mean it either. They don't give up in this game, they don't. They can't.

(Because if they do, their entireties will be lost, floating in mindless nothings and spaceless waste filled with questions that have no answers.)

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><p>It doesn't matter what happens from here on out. Not really. It's different again and yet the same; same with the lingering gazes, the quiet gestures learned from years, and the secret crinkling of the eyes when no one else is looking. The difference is wherever it hadn't been before.<p>

After Mustang and Hawkeye, there is Roy and Riza again, and an empty train that pulls put into the world of promises, into the world of only newer beginnings.

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><p><em>Owari<em>

_2011.04.22  
><em>


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